S88 



TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



At the Fazenda dos Negros, four leagues from 

 Retiro, we met with an unpleasant accident, one 

 of our people being bitten by a bird-spider. Though 

 these animals are universally proscribed as poison- 

 ous, yet the wound, after having been burnt over hot 

 coals, was not attended with serious consequences^ 

 The numerous slaves of the fazenda were cele- 

 brating a festival, which continued from sunset till 

 late in the night, with dancing, singing, and noisy 

 music. The din of their atabaque, a kind of drum, 

 and the canza, a thick tube with iron bars across, 

 on which they produce a jarring sound, by passing 

 over it backwards and forwards with a stick, dis- 

 turbed us as much as the torrents of rain, which, 

 driven by the high wind from all quarters under 

 our shed, frequently obliged us suddenly to lie 

 down in another place. With this night we began 

 to experience the inconveniences of a journey dui*- 

 ing the season of the rains, which henceforward 

 continued uninterruptedly not only in the night, 

 but even in the afternoon. Surrounded by wooded 

 mountains, which were covered every morning low 

 down with thick fog, we soon perceived a consi- 

 derable increase in the moisture of the atmosphere. 

 The whalebone hygrometer, which in the pre- 

 ceding months had been more elastic, was now 

 very often 60° and 65°, and in the evening and 

 morning more than 70°. The wet season that now 

 set in appeared to be welcome to the inhabitants 

 themselves ; for the places where the woods had 



